54% Of The Internet Is Now ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ Trailers

I hate to break it to you, but we’ve been running some numbers and the results are pretty startling. At the beginning of 2013, the most significant portions of the internet were, as you’d probably expect, 24% illegal downloading, 23% cat-based social media, 15% pornography and whatever-the-other-number-is-% hand-crafted Doctor Who cakes and jumpers (and people shouting about Justin Bieber).

But that’s all changed now. Since the first trailers for Star Trek Into Darkness began infesting servers all over the world, we’ve seen an enormous reduction in the downloading, Facebook cats and pornography areas (and a slight increase in Doctor Who). Justin Bieber remains a constant.

Productivity in the workplace has tanked, emails are started, but never finished or sent. All anyone wants to do is watch Star Trek Into Darkness trailers and listen to Benedict Cumberbatch say evil stuff, evilly.

And it’s a problem that is only going to get worse. It seems that each new trailer creates a demand for another trailer. People are now more familiar with that shot of Captain Kirk jumping off a cliff than they are with members of their own family. Far from treating this as a case for concern, whole communities that, until a few short weeks ago, had never heard of Star Trek now find themselves locked into bitter arguments of conjecture as to what will actually happen in the film. Will Benedict’s character John Harrison destroy the world, like he did London? Will that notable hot-head Kirk save the day? Why is it called Starfleet if one ship does all the work?

This can only lead to a psychological disintegration. It’s a short hop from asking “is John Harrison Khan?” to “who is Khan?” to “am I Khan?” and then finally “who am I?” and yet it’s one that very few people appear to be worried about.

Look, this arrived today. It’s just like the Star Trek Into Darkness trailer that came out a couple of days ago, and profiled James T. Kirk, only this time, the subject is Mr Spock:

Tomorrow, there will probably be a similar one about Doctor McCoy, then Uhura, and so on. And it’s a sign of how desperate things are becoming that we will all still happily watch when they make one about Chekov, and he’s just the driver’s mate. His job is fetching the tea, and leaning out of the side window, making sexism in a Russian accent.

Frankly, if things continue at this rate, Star Trek Into Darkness could become responsible for the end of the internet as a global tool of communication. It will simply become a delivery system for Benedict’s black honeyed tones, and no one will notice that the film all of these trailers are supposedly talking about has never come out.

And no one will care, because tomorrow we start again, with another trailer. This time a guided tour of the Enterprise with a gloating voiceover pointing out which of the bedrooms John Harrison has befouled with his bodily gases.

Fraser McAlpine

Fraser has been writing and broadcasting about music and popular culture for over 15 years, first at the Top of the Pops website, and most recently for the NME, Guardian and MSN. He also wrote BBC Radio 1's Chart Blog and reviews albums for BBC Radio 2.
He is Anglophenia's current resident Brit, blogging about British slang and running around the Mall taking snaps of the crowd at the Royal Wedding, as well as reigniting a childhood passion for classic Doctor Who and cramming as much music in as he can manage.
Fraser invites you to join him on Twitter: @csi_popmusic